Sandaysoft

I'm interested and keeping a watchful eye, but not in a position to buy anything at the moment - now if the FO were to 'die'

_________________
Mark
Wilmslow Astro Weather

You could shoot it Mark, that's what I did with mine. Of course, it had an organ donor card, so the wind vane, anemometer, and rain gauge were re-purposed to the new system.
Speaking of which, are there any recommendations for better units?

Charlie, how about those sponsored on the Hobby Boards weather web pages - certainly not the lowest priced items.

Replacement parts for the Davis Vantage Pro weather stations could also be 'possible candidates'...

You did write that the FO (and similar) stations were not very reliable - all those mass-produced poor quality control Asian weather stations...

If i missed this somewhere along the way, sorry.

But, am I correct in assuming this is going to to connect via 1 wire?

And, does Cumulus currently support 1 wire?

Duke

_________________
Duke

Nightingale Weather PHP
Eastleigh, Hampshire, UK

It uses 1-wire sensors, yes.

No.

Charlie's device emulates a Fine Offset station.

_________________
Steve
Sanday Weather
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like Cumulus and want to support it? Please donate!

No.

Steve, I did read somewhere that you said you had had numerous requests for 1 wire support, is this something that may creep into Cumulus? I realize & understand you already put a lot of time and effort into Cumulus.

Duke

_________________
Duke

Nightingale Weather PHP
Eastleigh, Hampshire, UK

Definitely not. I won't be adding support for any more current weather stations, and I include 1-wire in that category. This is why Charlie created his device.

_________________
Steve
Sanday Weather
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like Cumulus and want to support it? Please donate!

I have extensive and multiple 1-wire networks using the 2 Temp-08's, 1 Temp-05 and many Maxim Serial 9097's plus a newly developed from Asia mini-USB 9097. I use a mixed topology combining the star / hub and spoke setup. Mostly multiple humidity/temperature sensors inside and outside of the house. Over the years I have added lightning, barometer, light and dual counters. Most recently the newer light and humidity sensors have been short lived having to replace them after 6 months or so. It seems that the first generation of combo 1-wire sensors though are still fine after 10 years or so.

My 1-wire network started with the AAG Weather instrument (Dallas Instruments). I purchased two of these over 10 years ago. It worked over the years and I would swap one for the other after every 3-4 years. None the less one day around 5-6 years ago I started to pay attention to the wind speeds. They were off and they were totally off on both wind instruments. I took apart the device a few times and modified the design a touch; but it seemed that debounce and or inertia would provide a 30-40% faster than real wind speeds. After that and before purchasing the Fine Offset / Davis Vantage Vue I would tweak the numbers from the AAG Weather Instrument.

The above mentioned I still utilize the extensive 1-wire network everyday but do not currently use the flawed design AAG / Dallas 1-wire weather instrument. I believe though the newer generation of 1-wire wind instruments; a bit more expensive; work better. I also installed a custom pagoda aspirated with multiple 1-wire sensors about 4 years ago. That instrument and sensors quit working after about 8 months and even with the dual mast brackets on it ($80 USD) broke off the mast after about two years or so ago.

The above noted; I have stable 1-wire networks but there is some "magic" to 1-wire where as it works or it doesn't depending on the topology and reflections. Many folks are today using the 1-wire hubs which appear to function just fine with their 1-wire networks. (plug n play).

I've been most recently testing 1-wire connectivity to my sprinkler system Seagate Dockstar Arch Linux box. Works fine. I also utilize the 1-wire network with the xAP network and it also works fine and provides network xAP "capture" of all of the 1-wire devices (> 40 or so).

BTW first gen combo humidity / temperature sensors used to be around $15 USD. Most current versions are around $40 or so USD. 1-wire temperture sensors are pennies each if you purchase them in bulk. My preference is to utilize 1-wire with only two wires; but with additional power requirments its three wires.

_________________
- Pete

http://longboatkey.golffan.us/ - Fine Offset

http://lockport.golffan.us/ - Davis Vantage Vue

Steve, The "Fine Offset" stations have a Data Logger ?

Thanks!

_________________
Marco-Luis
YV1HX
Cabimas, Zulia, Venezuela
http://www.twitter.com/meteoven

Yes, they do. As does Charlie's device.

_________________
Steve
Sanday Weather
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like Cumulus and want to support it? Please donate!

Thanks Steve!

_________________
Marco-Luis
YV1HX
Cabimas, Zulia, Venezuela
http://www.twitter.com/meteoven

Just an update - the first production unit has been running without issues for about 8 weeks now. A second unit has been installed (on the opposite side of the planet) and seems to be happily reporting data as well. I have a small quantity of finished units ready to go, including documentation (about 20 pages), and some diagnostic tools that can be helpful during setup.

Despite the tools and documents, this is a station for a technical user who wants to experiment a bit. Not that it's overly difficult, but I’m not sure I’d ask my wife to install it as it’s not quite as “plug and play” as the F.O. it’s replacing. There are advantages, though. It is nice to be able to test out various types of humidity sensors, for example, and it supports a few different types of popular sensor models that use different protocols.

The indoor unit that connects to Cumulus by USB provides indoor temperature, indoor humidity, and barometric pressure, and of course the data logger. The external sensors (1-wire) include temperature, humidity, wind direction and speed (ave & gust), rainfall, lux/solar radiation, and UV index. Everything connects with standard ethernet cables, although I plan to swap mine for direct burial CAT-5 eventually. I did need to customize some of the commercial sensors slightly, so I could eliminate the human intervention inherent with 1-wire gear. (instructions are in the manual) Things like assignment of sensor unique codes to applications is done without entering any data.

I've done a few things to make sensors more accurate than usual, including compensating for local temperature and system operating voltages where those parameters could impact the result of the measurement, and elimination of 1-wire parasitic mode which is not necessary since all the sensors have local power supplied over the ethernet cables anyway, and parasitic mode just introduces small amounts of error and noise. Communication links are all CRC protected, and there is some software based filtering of measurements where it makes sense to do so.

I’ve been asked about extra sensors – The short answer is that the station has no display of it’s own, and uses Cumulus exclusively, so it does not support any functionality that Cumulus does not support. Since the unit emulates a Fine Offset with UV & Solar, it does not provide any sensors beyond what that unit provides – just better quality, accuracy, and hopefully longevity.

Very interesting Charlie I have built a 1-wire weather station as you know but it doesn't go as far as yours and it uses my own software. However, Steve has developed Cumulus way beyond anything I've done and to interface to Cumulus seems a very good idea Kudos to you for getting your system working and combating the problems of USB. When I was younger I might have been able to do something similar myself.

I have to admit that although many years ago I was a fair whiz at software and interface development (as a part of my profession) my abilities have deteriorated with age and I find I can no longer get my head round complicated software any more It is unfortunately the case that I'm finding I have to lower my expectations of what I can achieve both physically and mentally. And everything takes a lot longer than it used to. I'll be 70 in a couple of weeks so I guess it's only to be expected. Have to say I don't feel old but do find I can't do what I used to.

I plan to get back to weather station development but don't expect any fast progress.

_________________
Gina

Sorry, no banner - weather station out of action. Hoping to be up and running with a new home-made one soon.

Congratulations on your milestone, Gina! The beauty of retirement is that you don’t have anyone demanding things be done yesterday, so you can work at your own pace. None of us are as speedy as we were 20 or 30 years ago, but at least we’re still moving!

Since my station emulates a Fine Offset it should work with G-weather too. I noticed in your other thread that you have all the 1-wire sensors in place, and you have G-weather working with a Fine Offset, but you still need to write a translation block to make 1-wire sensors work with G-weather. Perhaps a hardware translator like mine might be the way to go. In fact, using mine could free you to work on other areas of the system. I’d be happy to go through each of the sensor designs with you, and I’m happy to make changes where necessary, but from what you’ve posted, I suspect everything should work right out of the box. I am emulating a 3080 rather than a 1080, however, so you might have to modify G-weather to deal with solar data. Or perhaps you already have – I have not been to your site for awhile.

In any case, you’ve been away from this board too long and it’s great to see you back! We’ve missed you. You’ve helped many of us understand these stations better, and you actually started me down this development path a couple years ago with Fine Offset discussions (and dissections).

Thank you for your kind words Charlie

Yes I agree your station should work with G-Weather. I also think that my 1-wire station should be quite easily interfaced with G-Weather as both use Python as the programming language so I expect to have solar info added to G-Weather. The whole thing is modular so adding extra bits is relatively easy. But your hardware solution seems a great way to interface with Cumulus. Without the source code for Cumulus, interfacing my 1-wire station to Cumulus is not trivial. I shall be interested to see what price you decide to charge for your translator.

_________________
Gina

Sorry, no banner - weather station out of action. Hoping to be up and running with a new home-made one soon.